ONCE / FOREVER / BUDDY / WIZ*ONE / REVELUV / MIDZY

"Onward" is set in a fantasy world wherein there exists elves, dragons, unicorns, centaurs, manticore, and many others, but magic has died because the people found easier ways to accomplish things rather than the highly complex magic. The main protagonists of this film are two elf brothers named Ian and Barley Lightfoot. Ian is an awkward and unsociable boy who is afraid of everything while Barley is a reckless boy who is a big fan of role-playing games.

The premise itself of the story is already very interesting: mythical creatures who can no longer perform magic and are living like "normal" people. But what really sold it for me was the depth of the characters. Ian is a young mage who slowly learns to perform magic from the most basic to the most advanced spells in just 24 hours during their adventure. He flops miserably at every spell at first, but as he learns to believe in himself, he eventually masters all the spells quickly and gave us an awesome boss fight in the end. He also grew up never meeting his father who died due to an illness, so he always longed for that fatherly love but in the end, he realizes that he had always had that fatherly love in the form of his brother. Barley, on the other hand, has always been outcasted by everyone due to his love of magic and adventure (ironically). After finding out that his brother had magic, something he has always longed for, he never showed any envy or jealousy. He always looked out for his little brother and loved him even if the latter didn't appreciate it. The film showed his understanding, maturity, readiness to sacrifice anything, and unconditional love for his brother. Even the side characters like "The Manticore" had her own spotlight. She used to be a brave and daring adventurer but due to taxes and debts, she was forced to adapt to society and became a tavern owner who is a slave to her customers.

Another interesting thing about the film is the high quality of animation. They were able to capture facial expressions so well and combined with great dialogues and beautiful music scores evoked all kinds of emotions from the audience. The voice acting was also very good that you sometimes forget they were dubbed. It was as if the character were brought to life. It is also for this reason that many of the dialogues had a much bigger impact and brought chills to the spine. The directing and cinematography were also impeccable. Scenes were shown in the most interesting way that captures the audience's attention. For a world that no longer had magic, it was indeed very magical. If you would like to see a great Disney film once again, this is a movie you should never miss.